Systems and methods for protecting information

ABSTRACT

Systems and methods for protecting information provided to an agent via a communication network are provided. In this regard, a representative method comprises, receiving information related to a transaction, wherein the information includes video. Additionally, the method includes initiating a recording of the video and identifying visual content in the video that is to be protected. The method further comprises preventing unauthorized access to the visual content during replay of the recording of the video.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation application of and claims priority toU.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/395,514, titled SYSTEMS AND METHODSFOR PROTECTING INFORMATION, filed on Mar. 31, 2006, and which is herebyincorporated by reference in its entirety. No new matter has been added.

TECHNICAL BACKGROUND

Contact centers are staffed by agents that facilitate varioustransactions with customers. By way of example, a customer may contact acontact center by phone, with the phone call being routed to an agentfor handling. After the phone call is routed to the agent, the agent andcustomer can interact to facilitate a transaction. For instance, thecustomer may express a desire to purchase a product that is beingoffered for sale. Notably, various forms of information, such as productname and price, typically are communicated during this interaction. Moreimportantly, however, more sensitive information also is communicated.In particular, personal information related to the customer, such asname and address, could be communicated. In addition, the customer'ssocial security number and/or credit card numbers also could becommunicated.

Overview

In this regard, systems and methods for protecting information, whichmay be sensitive or secure information, provided to an agent via acommunication network are provided. Such information can be provided viavoice dialog, and/or derived from screen events and data, stored CRMdata, stored IVR data, CTI events and data, D-channel events, chat andmessenger text, and/or video. A representative embodiment of such amethod comprises: receiving a communication via a communication network,the communication including information that is to be protected; routingthe communication to an agent; recording at least a portion of thecommunication; identifying the information that is to be protected fromthe communication; and preventing unauthorized access to the information(via replay or other access method, such as automated analysis, and/orapplying security measures or masking) of the portion of thecommunication.

A representative embodiment of a system comprises a communicationmonitoring system and a recording device. The communication monitoringsystem is operative to monitor a communication via a communicationnetwork and identify information contained in the communication that isto be protected. The recording device is operative to record at least aportion of the communication. Additionally, the communication monitoringsystem is further operative to provide instructions to the recordingdevice responsive to identifying the information such that unauthorizedaccess to the information is prevented of the portion of thecommunication that was recorded by the recording device.

Computer-readable media also are provided, a representative embodimentof which has a computer program stored thereon. The computer programcomprises computer-executable instructions for performing acomputer-executed method for protecting information provided to an agentvia a communication network. The method comprises: receiving acommunication via a communication network, the communication includinginformation that is to be protected; identifying the information that isto be protected from the communication; recording at least a portion ofthe communication; preventing unauthorized access to the informationsuch that, if it is determined that the information that is to beprotected has been recorded, at least a portion of the information isrendered unintelligible to a user unless that user possesses anauthorization to access the information.

In a further embodiment, a method is provided for protecting recordedcontent. The method comprises receiving information related to atransaction, wherein the information includes video. Additionally, themethod includes initiating a recording of the video and identifyingvisual content in the video that is to be protected. The method furthercomprises preventing unauthorized access to the visual content duringreplay of the recording of the video.

In an additional embodiment, a monitoring system for protecting recordedcontent is provided. The system comprises a communication interfaceconfigured to receive information related to a transaction, wherein theinformation includes video. The system further includes a processorconfigured to initiate a recording of the video, and identify visualcontent in the video that is to be protected. The processor is alsoconfigured to prevent unauthorized access to the visual content duringreplay of the recording by modifying the visual content to producemodified visual content.

Other systems, methods, features and/or advantages of this disclosurewill be or may become apparent to one with skill in the art uponexamination of the following drawings and detailed description. It isintended that all such additional systems, methods, features and/oradvantages be included within this description and be within the scopeof the present disclosure.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram depicting an embodiment of a system forprotecting information.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart depicting functionality (or method steps)performed by an embodiment of a system for protecting information.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram depicting a communication and selectfunctionality implemented by an embodiment of a system for protectinginformation with respect to the communication.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a computing device that can be used toimplement an embodiment of a system for protecting information.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

As will be described in detail herein, systems and methods forprotecting information provided to an agent via a communication networkare provided. In this regard, such systems and methods can potentiallyprevent unauthorized access to information provided by a customer duringinteraction with an agent of call center. In some embodiments, this canbe accomplished by selectively terminating recording of suchcommunications during times when information that is to be protected iscommunicated to the agent. Additionally, or alternatively, responsive tosuch information being recorded, at least a portion of that informationcan be modified so that only those users who are authorized access tosuch information are provided with the information in an intelligibleformat. By way of example, some embodiments can modify the informationthat was recorded by deleting, obfuscating, masking and/or encrypting atleast a portion of the information.

As used herein, the phrase “information that is to be protected” can bebroadly defined as information that would be considered sensitive to acustomer. This can include security data, which includes social securitynumbers and credit card information. Notably, credit card informationcan include credit card numbers and credit card security data, such asCVV data, which is oftentimes located on the back of a credit card.

Referring in detail to the drawings, FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of anembodiment of a system for protecting information. As shown in FIG. 1,system 100 incorporates a communication monitoring system 102 thatreceives communications provided by a communications network 104.Notably, communications network 104 can be any or a combination ofnetwork types (e.g., PSTN, WAN, LAN, the Internet) for communicatingvarious formats (e.g., analog telephone signals, Voice over InternetProtocol (VoIP)) of information.

System 100 also incorporates user workstations, in this case, an agentworkstation 106 and a supervisor workstation 108. Each workstation caninclude a computer and a telephone. In particular, the agent workstation106 is operative to run various applications, such as those that enablean agent to access information for interacting with a customer 110.

Additionally, system 100 incorporates a recording device 112. Therecording device receives information for recording as instructed by themonitoring system 102 as will be described below.

The monitoring system is operative to receive information correspondingto communications that are received from the communication network, suchas those received from a workstation and/or a customer. The monitoringsystem then directs the recording of the information based on a set ofrules that can be stored in a database associated with the monitoringsystem. In particular, based on an analysis of the receivedcommunications with respect to the rules, the monitoring system can beconfigured to provide instructions to the recording device to controlstart/stop break recording functions of the recording device. It shouldbe noted that more than one recording device can be used in someembodiments, with the recording functions of each of the recordingdevices being potentially directed by the monitoring system.

Although the communications depicted in FIG. 1 are shown as beingprovided directly to monitoring system 102 from the communicationsnetwork, the monitoring system may receive the information indirectly.By way of example, the information could be provided to the monitoringsystem by another component, e.g., a component that provides a copy ofthe communication to the monitoring system. Thus, it should be notedthat systems for protecting information (such as the system 100) couldinclude various components that are not shown in FIG. 1, e.g. serversand switches, with such various components being omitted for ease ofdescription.

Functionality of an embodiment of a system for protecting information(such as depicted in FIG. 1) will now be described with reference toFIG. 2. As shown in FIG. 2, the functionality (or method) may beconstrued as beginning at block 202, where a communication is receivedvia a communication network. Specifically, the communication includesinformation that is to be protected, and could correspond to acommunication between a customer and an agent of a call center, forexample. In block 204, the communication is routed to an agent. In block206, at least a portion of the communication is recorded. As will bedescribed in detail later, the portion of the communication that isrecorded mayor may not include at least a portion of the informationthat is to be protected. In block 208, the information that is to beprotected is identified from the communication. Thereafter, such asdepicted in block 210, unauthorized access to the information isprevented, such as during replay of the portion of the communicationthat was recorded.

As will be described in greater detail hereafter, various and/orcombinations of methodologies may be used to ensure that information isprotected. In particular, these methodologies can include, but are notlimited to: analyzing a communication and selectively not recording atleast a portion of the information that is to be protected; analyzing acommunication and selectively recording at least a portion of thecommunication such that at least a portion of the information that is tobe protected is not recorded; deleting at least a portion of theinformation that is to be protected prior to storing corresponding datain long term storage; after storing corresponding data in long termstorage, deleting at least a portion of the information that is to beprotected from long term storage; modifying at least a portion of theinformation that is to be protected such that at least a portion of theinformation is unintelligible to a user unless that user possesses anauthorization to access the information; manually, selectively recordingor not recording the communication to prevent recording of at least aportion of the information that is to be protected; and manually orautomatically, tagging portion(s) of a communication to have securityapplied to the tagged portion(s) (such as silencing, masking,encryption, and/or immediate, e.g., real-time, or delayed overwrite orremoval of the tagged portions), thereby eliminating the need to breakor suspend recording and thereafter stitch segments of the communicationtogether.

Thus, the various methodologies for protecting information can begenerally categorized in one of the following groups; namely, 1) thosemethodologies that operate to ensure that at least part of theinformation is not or will not be committed to long term storage, 2)those methodologies that operate to modify at least a portion of theinformation that is or will be committed to long term storage, and 3)those methodologies that operate to tag certain portion(s) of acommunication and to apply security to the tagged portion(s).

In general, the ability to protect information corresponding to acommunication can be based, at least in part, upon the occurrence ofvarious triggers. By way of example, reference is made to the schematicdiagram of FIG. 3, which depicts a communication. As shown in FIG. 3,communication 300, e.g., a telephone call, has a start and an end, withthe length of the communication being indicative of the time duration ofthe communication. Communication 300 also exhibits a triggering event,the onset and end of which are depicted. By analyzing the communication(various methods of which will be described later), the onset of thetriggering event can be identified. Responsive thereto, informationcorresponding to the communication between the onset and thelater-identified end of the triggering event, for example, can beprotected.

As mentioned above, various methodologies for protecting information canbe used. In this regard, several methodologies that do not commit atleast a portion of the information to long term storage will now bedescribed in greater detail. Specifically, some embodiments areconfigured to determine whether information contained in a communicationis to be captured for recording. Various triggers, e.g., events, can beused to facilitate such a determination. For instance, voice recognitiontechniques can be utilized to determine whether information will be oris being provided by the communication. In this regard, a voicerecognition algorithm could determine whether one or more of various“hotwords” have been communicated. Responsive to determining that one ormore hot words have been communicated, capturing of information could besuspended. Such could be the case in embodiments that are configured tocapture information unless recording is suspended. Alternatively, inembodiments that typically do not capture information unless prompted todo so, responsive to one or more hot words, capturing of informationcould be started. Succinctly, the above described a dialog focusembodiment in which voice/audio is filtered to determine whether tostart recording, stop recording, suspend recording, resume recording,blank recording, scramble recording, and/or insert silence into therecording if secured information are communicated.

Additionally, or alternatively, various other events, such as desk topevents monitored at an agents workstation (e.g., screen data),application events involving monitoring agent activity (e.g.,application focus events and data), CRM events and data, and CTI eventsor CTI data, which involves monitoring of data that was captured, can beused. For example, an agent entering a specific page within anapplication that requires the entering of a person's social securitynumber may trigger the system to stop recording either or both of theaudio and the desktop video. In an enhancement, the text on the agent'sscreen may drive the voice recognition filter or dialog focus triggers.

Thus, based upon the occurrence of one or more triggers, which may beinitiated triggers or timed triggers, at least a portion of theinformation that is to be protected will not be available for accessingbecause that information is not retained in a long term storage memorydevice. This could provide an improved level of protection for suchinformation since not all of the information that was communicated tothe agent will be available for subsequent access.

It should be noted that the use of various triggers can be used prior tocommitting the information that was captured to long term storage orafter the information has been committed to long term storage. That is,in some embodiments, although communications could be analyzed todetermine whether any triggers have occurred in real time, additionallyor alternatively, such analysis could occur after the information hasbeen captured. By way of example, such analysis could occur after theinformation has been placed in a buffer, but prior to the informationbeing committed to long term storage. In such embodiments, theinformation in the buffer could be analyzed for triggers, and anyinformation that should not be committed to long term storage that isfound in the buffer could be deleted and/or modified. Such could also bethe case when information has been committed to long term storage. Thatis, the information committed to long term storage could additionally oralternatively be analyzed for triggers, the discovery of which couldcause the system to delete or otherwise modify any information that isto be protected. Thus, in some embodiments, monitoring systems canperform real-time processing and/or subsequent screening of information.

In at least some embodiments that delete information that has beencaptured, stitching can be used. In particular, a portion of a recordingthat preceded the deleted information can be stitched together with aportion of the recording that succeeded the information. This can resultin a relatively seamless recording that can save memory capacity.

With regard to stitching, some embodiments can, for example, stitch thesegments together with no gap at replay, stitch the segments togetherwith a gap at replay (or showing a gap), stitch the segments togetherwith alternative content at replay (such as silence or other identifiersto signify that secured information has not been recorded and/or deletedand/or is protected from replay). For example, such a system may alsoprovide indication between the stitched sides, which can be for example,two or more sides, that would provide indication to a user thatsomething was removed for security purposes. In some embodiments, theevent identifiers may be represented with a tone or silence in case ofaudio, or an image or logo in the case of video/screen capture.

As mentioned above, information pertaining to a communication can becaptured for subsequent analysis and use. In this regard, suchinformation can include audio corresponding to the communication, screendisplayed to the agent that is handling the communication and variousCTI and/or other status indicators present during the communication.

With respect to modification of information that is to be protected,such modification can occur in various manners, including those whichinvolve different times for performing the modification and differenttypes of modification. With respect to the time of modification, suchmodification can occur essentially contemporaneously with the capture ofthe information up to and including a time that the information is to beaccessed and provided to a user, such as in the form of a replay of theinformation. Notably, if the information is to be modified for thepurpose of replay, some embodiments can be configured to modify thecontents of the information in long term storage responsive to accessbeing requested. Alternatively, a copy of the information can bemodified so that the copy of the information is presented to the user ina modified format, with the information in long term storage beingunaltered.

Irrespective of the particular time at which the information ismodified, various types of modification can be used. Generally, thesetypes of modification include masking, obfuscating, encrypting anddeleting at least a portion of the information.

With respect to the masking of information, various types of masking canbe used. In particular, the type of masking utilized depends, at leastin part, upon the format of the information that is to be masked. By wayof example, when the information is audio content, masking can involvereplacing at least a portion of the audio content with silence. However,when the information that is to be protected is included in a screenshot from an agent workstation, visual masking techniques, such asoverlaying an opaque graphic, can be used to visually obscure at least aportion of the information that is to be protected.

With respect to modification by encryption, both audio content andvisual content (e.g., screen shots) can be encrypted. Encryption can beaccomplished by many different types of cryptography techniques, whichmay include, for example, one-way hashes (hashed indexes) such as SHA-1;truncation; index tokens and PADs, with the PADs being securely stored;or strong cryptography, such as Triple-DES 128-bit or AES 256-bit withassociated key management processes and procedures.

It should be noted that in some embodiments, communications and/or agentactivity may not only be monitored by a monitoring system for thepurpose of identifying information that is to be protected,communications and/or agent activity can also be monitored by asupervisor for quality assurance purposes, for example. In suchembodiments, various techniques can be employed for ensuring thatinformation that is to be protected does not circumvent variousprotective schemes by being routed to a supervisor for monitoring. Byway of example, in some embodiments, a supervisor may be able to monitora communication remotely and have access to the same information towhich the agent has access. In some of these embodiments, theinformation provided for supervisor monitoring is subsequently deletedsuch that no additional copies of the information are available. Inother embodiments, the information provided to the supervisor formonitoring can be in a format that contains less information than isprovided to the agent. By way of example, the information can beprovided to the supervisor in a format that corresponds to the manner inwhich the information would be presented to the supervisor during areplay. As mentioned before, the information provided for such a replaycould be modified to prevent unauthorized access to the information thatis to be protected. Notably, however, up to all the information that hasbeen modified for replay could be reconfigured to be provided to a userin an intelligible format. In this case, if the supervisor is authorizedaccess to the information, the information could be provided to thesupervisor for monitoring in an intelligible format.

For those embodiments that modify information for the purpose ofprotecting that information, such activities could be logged to providean audit trail. Such an audit trail could be particularly useful inthose embodiments that delete information so that the information is nolonger accessible. By way of example, various activities associated withthe recording and/or modification of information can be provided asdetails that are saved as data entries. These data entries can then becorrelated with the recorded information. By way of example, the auditdetails could include, but are not limited to: capture identification ofa user initiating or causing an event, the type of event that occurred,the date and time that the event occurred, the success or failure of theevent, and the identity of the system/resource affected by the event.With respect to such events, such events could include, but are notlimited to: a user's act of viewing captured content or metadataassociated with content, a user's act of changing attributes or foradding attributes to captured content, a user's act of changing aconfiguration setting, failed or successful authentication activity,changes to a user account, access to a system audit log, modificationsto any business rules (such as the rules used to implement recording ornon-recording), and evaluation activities.

Notably, with respect to any information that is recorded, varioussecurity techniques can be used to ensure that the stored information isnot tampered with or somehow altered once storage and/or modification ofthe information has taken place. In this regard, some embodiments canincorporate watermarking and/or fingerprinting techniques to ensure thatthe information is not altered. Watermarks and/or fingerprints can beused to validate the integrity of the captured content to the user at alater date.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram illustrating an embodiment of a computingdevice that is configured to perform the functionality associated withan embodiment of a monitoring system. Generally, in terms of hardwarearchitecture, computer 400 includes a processor 40˜, memory 404, a userinterface 406, and one or more input and/or communication (I/O) deviceinterface(s) 408 that are communicatively coupled via a local interface410. The local interface can include, for example but not limited to,one or more buses or other wired or wireless connections. The localinterface may have additional elements, which are omitted forsimplicity, such as controllers, buffers (caches), drivers, repeaters,and receivers to enable communications. Further, the local interface mayinclude address, control, and/or data connections to enable appropriatecommunications among the aforementioned components.

The processor 402 may be a hardware device for executing software,particularly software stored in memory 404. In this regard, theprocessor can be any custom made or commercially available processor, acentral processing unit (CPU), an auxiliary processor among severalprocessors associated with the recorder, a semiconductor basedmicroprocessor (in the form of a microchip or chip set), amacroprocessor, or generally any device for executing softwareinstructions. Examples of suitable commercially availablemicroprocessors are as follows: a PA-RISC series microprocessor fromHewlett-Packard® Company, an 80x86 or Pentium® series microprocessorfrom Intel® Corporation, a PowerPC® microprocessor from IBM®, a Sparc®microprocessor from Sun Microsystems®, Inc, or a 68xxx seriesmicroprocessor from Motorola® Corporation.

The memory 404 can include anyone or combination of volatile memoryelements (e.g., random access memory (RAM, such as DRAM, SRAM, SDRAM,etc.)) and nonvolatile memory elements (e.g., ROM, hard drive, tape,CDROM, etc.). Moreover, the memory may incorporate electronic, magnetic,optical, and/or other types of storage media. Note that the memory canhave a distributed architecture, where various components are situatedremote from one another, but can be accessed by the processor.Additionally, the memory can include an operating system 412, as well asinstructions associated with a monitoring system 420.

The software in memory may include one or more separate programs, eachof which includes an ordered listing of executable instructions forimplementing logical functions. In this regard, a non exhaustive list ofexamples of suitable commercially available operating systems is asfollows: (a) a Windows® operating system available from Microsoft®Corporation; (b) a Netware® operating system available from Novell®,Inc.; (c) a Macintosh® operating system available from Apple® Computer,Inc.; (d) a UNIX operating system, which is available for purchase frommany vendors, such as the Hewlett-Packard® Company, Sun Microsystems®,Inc., and A T&T® Corporation; (e) a LINUX operating system, which isfreeware that is readily available on the Internet 100; (f) a run timeVxworks® operating system from WindRiver® Systems, Inc.; or (g) anappliance-based operating system, such as that implemented in handheldcomputers or personal data assistants (PDAs) (e.g., PalmOS® availablefrom Palm® Computing, Inc., and Windows CE® available from Microsoft®Corporation). The operating system can be configured to control theexecution of other computer programs and provides scheduling,input-communication control, file and data management, memorymanagement, and communication control and/or related services.

It should be noted that a system component embodied as software may alsobe construed as a source program, executable program (object code),script, or any other entity comprising a set of instructions to beperformed. When constructed as a source program, the program istranslated via a compiler, assembler, interpreter, or the like, whichmayor may not be included within the memory, so as to operate properlyin connection with the operating system.

When the computing device 400 is in operation, the processor isconfigured to execute software stored within the memory, to communicatedata to and from the memory, and to generally control operations of therecorder pursuant to the software. Software in memory, in whole or inpart, is read by the processor, perhaps buffered, and is then executed.In this regard, when executing instructions associated with themonitoring system, the exemplary functionality described above withrespect to monitoring systems may be performed.

It should be noted that any of the executable instructions, such asthose depicted functionally in the accompanying flowcharts, can beembodied in any computer-readable medium for use by or in connectionwith an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device, such as acomputer-based system, processor-containing system, or other system thatcan fetch the instructions from the instruction execution system,apparatus, or device and execute the instructions. In the context ofthis document, a “computer-readable medium” can be any means that cancontain, store, communicate, propagate, or transport the program for useby or in connection with the instruction execution system, apparatus, ordevice. The computer readable medium can be, for example but not limitedto, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, orsemiconductor system, apparatus, or device. More specific examples (anon exhaustive list) of the computer-readable medium could include anelectrical connection (electronic) having one or more wires, a portablecomputer diskette (magnetic), a random access memory (RAM) (electronic),a read-only memory (ROM) (electronic), an erasable programmableread-only memory (EPROM or Flash memory) (electronic), an optical fiber(optical), and a portable compact disc read-only memory (CDROM)(optical). In addition, the scope of embodiments of this disclosure caninclude embodying the functionality described in logic embodied inhardware or software-configured media.

It should be noted that the flowcharts included herein show thearchitecture, functionality and/or operation of implementations that maybe configured using software. In this regard, each block can beinterpreted to represent a module, segment, or portion of code, whichcomprises one or more executable instructions for implementing thespecified logical function(s). It should also be noted that in somealternative implementations, the functions noted in the blocks may occurout of the order. For example, two blocks shown in succession may infact be executed substantially concurrently or the blocks may sometimesbe executed in the reverse order, depending upon the functionalityinvolved.

It should be emphasized that the above-described embodiments are merelypossible examples of implementations, merely set forth for a clearunderstanding of the principles of this disclosure. Many variations andmodifications may be made to the above-described embodiments withoutdeparting substantially from the spirit and principles of thedisclosure. All such modifications and variations are intended to beincluded herein within the scope of this disclosure.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for protecting recorded content, themethod comprising: receiving an information stream from a communicationnetwork, wherein the information stream is related to a real-timetransaction between an agent and a party, and wherein the informationincludes video; recording the information stream; determining, by anelectronic monitoring system, when during the real-time transaction theagent is expected to be provided with visual content that has beenpredetermined to be protected; and preventing unauthorized access to thevisual content during replay of the recording by stopping the recordingduring a time in which the visual content that is to be protected isexpected to be provided during the transaction and restarting therecording after the time has lapsed such that the visual content is notrecorded.
 2. The method of claim 1 wherein preventing the unauthorizedaccess comprises modifying the visual content to produce modified visualcontent such that the modified visual content is unintelligible to auser unless the user possesses an authorization to access the visualcontent.
 3. The method of claim 2 wherein modifying the visual contentcomprises masking the visual content.
 4. The method of claim 2 whereinmodifying the visual content comprises encrypting the visual content. 5.The method of claim 1 further comprising stitching together a portion ofthe recording that preceded the time in which the visual content isexpected to be provided with a portion of the recording that succeededthe time in which the visual content is expected to be provided.
 6. Themethod of claim 1 wherein the information stream includes audio, andwherein the method further comprises: predicting when during thereal-time transaction the agent is expected to be provided with audiocontent that has been predetermined to be protected; and preventingunauthorized access to the audio content during replay of the recordingby stopping the recording during a time in which the audio content thatis to be protected is expected to be provided during the transaction andrestarting the recording after the time has lapsed such that the audiocontent is not recorded.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein thecommunication network receives information from a workstation associatedwith the agent.
 8. An electronic monitoring system for protectingrecorded content comprising: a communication interface configured toreceive an information stream from a communication network, wherein theinformation stream is related to a real-time transaction between anagent and a party and wherein the information includes video; and anelectronic processor configured to record the information stream, todetermine when during the real-time transaction the agent is expected tobe provided with visual content that has been predetermined to beprotected, and to prevent unauthorized access to the visual contentduring replay of the recording by stopping the recording during a timein which the visual content that is to be protected is expected to beprovided during the transaction and restarting the recording after thetime has lapsed such that the visual content is not recorded.
 9. Asystem for protecting recorded content comprising: a recording systemconfigured to receive an information system from a communication networkand to record the information stream, wherein the information stream isrelated to a real-time transaction between an agent and a party, andwherein the information includes video; and an electronic monitoringsystem in communication with the recording system and configured to, todetermine when during the real-time transaction the agent is expected tobe provided with visual content that has been predetermined to beprotected, and to prevent unauthorized access to the visual contentduring replay of the recording by requesting the recording system tostop the recording during a time in which the visual content that is tobe protected is expected to be provided during the transaction andrequesting the recording system to restart the recording after the timehas lapsed such that the visual content is not recorded.
 10. Themonitoring system of claim 8 wherein the modified visual contentcomprised masked visual content.
 11. The monitoring system of claim 8wherein the modified visual content comprises encrypted visual content.12. The monitoring system of claim 8, wherein the communication networkreceives information from a workstation associated with the agent.
 13. Asystem for protecting recorded content comprising: a recording systemconfigured to receive an information stream from a communication networkand to record the information stream, wherein the information stream isrelated to a real-time transaction between an agent and a party, andwherein the information includes video; and a monitoring system incommunication with the recording system and configured to, to determinewhen during the real-time transaction the agent is expected to beprovided with visual content that has been predetermined to beprotected, and to prevent unauthorized access to the visual contentduring replay of the recording by requesting the recording system tostop the recording during a time in which the visual content that is tobe protected is expected to be provided during the transaction andrequesting the recording system to restart the recording after the timehas lapsed such that the visual content is not recorded.
 14. The systemof claim 13 wherein the monitoring system, to prevent the unauthorizedaccess, modifies the visual content to produce modified visual contentsuch that the modified visual content is unintelligible to a user unlessthe user possesses an authorization to access the visual content. 15.The system of claim 14 wherein to modify the visual content, themonitoring system masks the visual content.
 16. The system of claim 14wherein to modify the visual content, the monitoring system encrypts thevisual content.
 17. The system of claim 13 wherein the recording systemis further configured to stitch together a portion of the recording thatpreceded the time in which the visual content is expected to be providedwith a portion of the recording that succeeded the time in which thevisual content is expected to be provided.
 18. The system of claim 13wherein the information includes audio, and wherein the monitoringsystem is further configured to predict when during the real-timetransaction the agent is expected to be provided with audio content thathas been predetermined to be protected, and to prevent unauthorizedaccess to the audio content during replay of the recording by requestingthe recording system to stop the recording during a time in which theaudio content that is to be protected is expected to be provided duringthe transaction and requesting the recording system to restart therecording after the time has lapsed such that the audio content is notrecorded.
 19. The system of claim 13, wherein the communication networkreceives information from a workstation associated with the agent.